'Why can't you Brits look after your litter strewn country?' asks American writer Bill Bryon on tonight's BBC TVs Panorama.

In Wiltshire, the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is launching a campaign to stop litter spoiling your enjoyment of the countryside.

It wants you to take a photo of a grot spot – from your mobile will be fine - and send it in to the Trust. The Trust will then attempt to highlight the litter problem to the landowner and see if there is a way it can help resolved the issue.

“We can contact the district or parish council on the landowner’s behalf to see if they will provide a skip or litter squads, or organise a volunteer litter pick, for example,” says John Sutton, the Trust’s Senior Waste Minimisation Officer.

“We are suggesting that when you are out on your country walk, horse or cycle ride, or indeed boating on the canal, send us a photo of litter from your mobile, tell us where it is – preferably with a grid reference – and we will contact the authority to see if we can get it sorted out. The worst examples will be published on our website,” says John.

If somebody drops a piece of litter in a town or along a road, someone, generally the district councils, will pick it up.

“The bigger problem is in the wider countryside on private land, where it is the landowners’ responsibility to clear it up. Landowners find themselves having to dispose of other people’s waste, through no fault of their own. But they, like us, are busy people, and so it often gets left and starts to pile up.”

When you have such a beautiful landscape, as we do here in Wiltshire, it’s such a shame to see it being spoilt. And it’s not just a visual thing - litter damages our wildlife. Birds and animals can die tangled in plastic ring holders or wires, or suffocate in plastic bags and containers. And toxins can leak from discarded waste and end up in our watercourses, where it can harm wildlife.

The Trust’s Wiltshire Litter Awareness campaign is funded by The Underwood Trust. It is linked to the national Stop the Drop crusade launched earlier this year by author Bill Bryson, president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

The CPRE campaign aims to highlight the awful impact of litter and fly-tipping, giving people the campaigning tools to demand action, and lobbying the Government for more leadership to tackle the problem.
Proposals put forward so far include a new bottle deposit law which would pay people to return their bottles, and fining motorists if they or their passengers are caught on camera throwing litter from vehicles.
According to the CPRE, an estimated 25 million tonnes of litter is dropped each year and the problem is five times worse than in the 1960s.

John adds: “We are giving people the chance to improve their environment by highlighting litter problems so they can be tackled. Of course many people are already picking up small items of litter that they come across, which is brilliant and to be encouraged.”

Pictured right, a group of youngsters aged 13 to 16 years from Larkhill in Wiltshire, gave the wood a good spring clean as part of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s Wiltshire Litter Awareness campaign.

Send your photos to johns@wiltshirewildlife.org.uk. Please keep your photos to a maximum of 10Mb.